Salinity is an important and fundamental chemical property of seawater that directly affects biological and physical processes of the oceans and coastal waters. Available instrumentation for measuring salinity is severely limited by accuracy, power, long-term stability, and high cost. Commonly, salinity measurements are determined by using a CTD instrument, which simultaneously measures conductivity, temperature and depth of the water. For a water sample of known temperature and pressure the salinity can be determined by measuring the conductivity of the sample. CTD data provides critical information to all fields of marine science research including chemical, biological, physical and geological.
There are various CTD systems currently known in the art. CTD systems constructed utilizing large scale electrodes are currently available. The size of these CTD systems severely limits their flexibility and adaptability to various applications. Inductive style CTD systems are also known in the art. These inductive systems are limited by their large physical size to sensed volume and long flushing lengths. These inductive CTD systems are based on embedded ceramic technology.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is a CTD system that allows for mass production and miniaturization of a CTD would be beneficial to the oceanographic community and water quality measurers.